Virginia’s Community Colleges provide a variety of activities to support employers, incumbent workers, and the emerging workforce.  These activities include career pathway programs that assist individuals in transitioning to employment after career and workplace training are provided, open enrollment courses (offered to the general public) that allow employees or potential employees to upgrade their skills, and customized training which provides the opportunity for employers to develop a course of study that meets their specific training needs. 

In 2010, Virginia’s community colleges began implementing a new strategic plan, Achieve 2015.  This plan includes workforce services and programs in the student access and success measurements.  The access goal focuses on increasing the number of individuals enrolled or receiving services through the colleges to 423,000, while the success goal strives to increase the number of students graduating, transferring, or completing a workforce credential by 50 percent.  Both goals also emphasize growth in services to traditionally underserved populations.

Supporting Workforce Departments and Noncredit Instruction at Community Colleges

Colleges design training programs that meet the current workforce needs through delivery of open enrollment or customized training as either credit or noncredit instruction.  In FY 2010, colleges provided over 103,600 individuals with workforce related training.  Of these, 68,000 individuals received instruction through noncredit delivery.  The types of instruction related to workforce can include courses that provide a skills upgrade, such as training in Microsoft Office, leadership and supervision, and project management.  In addition, workforce departments also offer instruction that prepares individuals to earn an industry certification or state licensure.  Preparation coursework ranges from the health technologies fields, including training as a certified nursing assistant, pharmacy technician, and medical coding and billing specialist, to trades-related occupations, such as general contractor, HVAC technician, and welder.  In total, colleges provided over 156,000 course enrollments related to workforce.

Employers are another key customer of community college workforce services whether through direct contracts or through partnerships with economic development and community agencies that assist existing or potential employers.  Last year, colleges served over 6,400 employers.  In addition, workforce staff partnered with economic development agencies on 80 projects to recruit employers to the region and worked with community agencies on 129 projects to provide training services to dislocated workers. 

Participants in workforce training and employers currently pay an estimated 90 percent of cost to deliver noncredit workforce instruction.  Despite the higher cost to employers and participants, these courses provided a significant contribution to the community and the economy. A recent economic impact study conducted by Mangum Consulting indicated that these noncredit workforce courses contribute to a nearly 9 to 1 ratio of benefit to cost.


Improving College Curriculum and Services to Employers and Individuals through Institutes of Excellence

One critical source of funding used to increase enrollments, develop new programs and enhance instruction for workforce courses is the Institutes of Excellence program.  In FY 2010, colleges received nearly $500,000 to develop or improve workforce training programs that were targeted toward high demand, high growth industries.  Examples of programs include: advanced manufacturing, allied health, construction trades, employment readiness, green technologies, hospitality, and tourism. With these funds and community partnership support of over $500,000 in in-kind contributions, colleges developed 70 new courses and programs and served close to 500 students.  Colleges worked closely with local One-Stop Centers and Workforce Investment Boards to build the success of their programs.  In addition, all colleges participate in the annual Institutes of Excellence showcase that features display booths and informal presentations on each project including curriculums developed, marketing materials and program outcomes to allow workforce colleagues from across the state to share and learn from their experiences. 


Expanding Services through Specialized Workforce Centers

In addition to the Institutes of Excellence, the four workforce centers located at Central Virginia, Danville, Paul D. Camp, and Thomas Nelson community colleges also worked to improve instruction and develop new programs.  In 2010, these centers served over 16,000 individuals through noncredit workforce related instruction. Projects developed by these centers include: Central Virginia’s creation of a Virginia Weatherization Training Center to provide home performance contracting and weatherization training at several community college sites across the Commonwealth; Danville’s implementation of a Career Studies Certificate aimed at providing unemployed and underemployed workers with the skills needed to become manufacturing technicians; Paul D. Camp’s 4-week noncredit course to prepare 35 displaced workers for the Master Electrician Exam; and Thomas Nelson’s opening of a state of the art welding center to serve emerging workers from local technical high schools, as well as dislocated and incumbent workers.